eBay has created a system that simplifies its email messaging system for communication between sellers and potential buyers. The new system, called "Anonymous Email Forwarding," may also reduce the number of users responding to phishing emails sent by scammers using "Yellow Buttons."

Understanding eBay's "Yellow Button"
eBay requires users to send questions about listings to sellers through an eBay internal email system. If potential buyers choose to hide their email address from the seller, eBay sends an email to the seller and places a message in their My Messages folder. When sellers receive the question via email, it comes from the eBay email address, "UseTheYellowButton@ebay.com." Inside the email, there is a hyperlinked yellow button for sellers to click, bringing them to the eBay sign-in page so they can respond to the question online.

According to ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo in a January interview, some sellers don't realize that if they hit reply to these emails, the buyer will never receive the answer. eBay does not forward emails sent to "UseTheYellowButton@ebay.com" address to the potential buyer.

Wingo had said sellers are also concerned about the fact that Ask Seller A Question emails contain hyperlinks leading to sign-in pages, which is a technique used by scammers who send phishing emails looking as though they come from eBay. On eBay's Spoof tutorial pages, it advises members to check their "My Messages" area in order to verify eBay emails, but high-volume sellers who receive hundreds of emails each day complain that this is an unmanageable burden.

Anonymous Email Forwarding
On Tuesday, eBay announced Anonymous Email Forwarding, which allows sellers to respond to emails sent through eBay's systems (such as Ask Seller A Question) from their own email client, while still protecting the privacy of email addresses.

eBay creates anonymous email addresses for both the buyer and the sender. They can then reply to emails directly from their email client. When the response goes back into eBay's systems, it will forward it to the appropriate recipient.

The new system will not record emails in either member's My Messages, so when responding through email clients to member emails, users will need to keep track of the messages they send.

The new feature will launch near the end of the month. eBay will forward only Text and HTML (no images or attachments).

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/anonymous-email-forwarding.html

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200610170955402.html

In other news, eBay raised the limit on its Immediate Payment feature for Buy It Now items. Immediate Payment requires that the buyer complete their payment through PayPal before the listing is officially ended. eBay has raised the limit of Immediate Payment from items priced at $2000 or lower to $4000 (http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200610161013352.html).

eBay also said it has improved its email marketing tool for eBay Stores sellers, see website for details (http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200610161359252.html).